At age 15, Carrey started to perform at Yuk Yuks comedy club in Toronto, and his career took off, with him working in comedy clubs across Canada. In 1981, at age 19, he moved to Los Angeles. He immediately became a regular at Mitzi Shore’s Comedy Store, attracting the attention of comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield. Dangerfield was so impressed with the young comic that they began touring together. It was then that things began to happen for Jim Carrey.
Carrey started landing roles in films like “Once Bitten,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and “Earth Girls Are Easy.” In 1988, Carrey made a brief, but memorable, appearance as “Johnny Squares,” the self-destructive rock star in the Clint Eastwood film “The Dead Pool.”
In 1990, Carrey joined the cast of Fox Television’s ensemble comedy hit “In Living Color.” In November of the following year, his first Showtime Special, entitled “Jim Carrey’s Unnatural Act,” premiered to rave reviews. He followed the special’s success with a starring role as an alcoholic trying to cope with life in Fox’s Emmy-nominated movie of the week, “Doing Time on Maple Drive.”
In 1994 after several successful seasons on “In Living Color,” Carrey once again branched out into feature films by accepting the lead role in the Warner Bros. comedy “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” Carrey followed that success in the summer of 1994 by starring in the title role of the action-fantasy “The Mask,” based on the best-selling Dark Horse comic book series of the same name. ” That same year he starred opposite Jeff Daniels in “Dumb and Dumber”, and went on to star in many more well-known hit comedies earning him six Golden Globe nominations and two Golden Globe awards.
In 2000, Carrey had the distinction of appearing in the year’s highest-grossing film, Universal Pictures’ release “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” The role earned him both Golden Globe and People’s Choice Award nominations.
